Songfacts®:

• Fresh off their April 2021 Academy Award win for their Soul score, Trent Reznor and his principal collaborator Atticus Ross started work on new Nine Inch Nails material the very next day. This collaboration with the noise rock group HEALTH is the first fruit from their labors to be released.
• The haunting song finds Nine Inch Nails and HEALTH reflecting on America in the early 2020s. Speaking to documentary maker David Farrier, HEALTH's Jake Duzsik said the band first met Nine Inch Nails when they opened for them in their early years. During the COVID pandemic, when things were quieter, HEALTH contacted Reznor about a possible collaboration. He agreed to it, so Duzsik sent him a "very skeletal" demo and Rezor responded with "a traditional sort of verse-chorus kinda idea."
  
  Once Nine Inch Nails and HEALTH completed the song, they wanted to release it quickly because of its contemporary theme. "I think at the time it was written - part of the reason we wanted it to come out so quickly, is that being an American in America, we were in the middle of Trumpocolypse and George Floyd," said Duszsik. "So there is some pretty poignant messaging relating to that specific experience."
• The song features tortured vocals and synth playing by Trent Reznor and Jake Duzsic, and brutal drumming from Health's Benjamin Miller. Purity Ring's Corin Roddick co-produced the track with Nine Inch Nails and HEALTH.